By Xinhua
Washington : Nearly two-thirds of Americans believe that President George W. Bush’s troop “surge” strategy for Iraq has been a failure, at a time when the president was trying to rally support for the strategy, according to a new poll released by Newsweek on Friday.
The poll, conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates International for the weekly magazine, also found broad public support for cutting the number of U.S. troops deployed on the battlefield in Iraq. But less than 20 percent favored immediate withdrawal.
Sixty-eight percent of those surveyed disapprove of the way the president is handling the war in Iraq, and the public approval of Bush’s handling of Iraq has remained below the 30 percent mark since January, when he announced his plans to increase the number of troops deployed there.
Sixty-four percent of Americans feel the surge in troops has been a failure, while 22 percent deem it a success. Bush’s overall approval rating is 29 percent, up 3 points from a Newsweek poll earlier this month.
Out of four possible options in the poll, 19 percent of the respondents chose immediate total withdrawal, 13 percent don’t want any cutbacks at all, and 24 percent would implement a gradual withdrawal plan that would start in the fall and extend until the spring. Forty percent favor keeping a substantial number of troops on the ground there, on the condition that they fall back to their bases and focus solely on training Iraqis and targeting al-Qaida.
The poll was conducted with 1,003 adults on Wednesday and Thursday and has the overall margin of error at plus or minus 4 percentage points.